Activating the Auto-Sorting

You're just getting started with RetentionX's Merchandise Optimization? That's awesome! Let's see what's next!

Once the setup is complete, the first collection data will be accessible after three days. As soon as the first data is available, this initiates a 7-day data collection period, allowing RetentionX to gather enough information to measure the performance of your products within collections.

During this period, all collections are marked with an orange dot, indicating that initial data is still being collected. However, you can already start monitoring product performance.

Clicking on a collection will display all relevant performance data for the products within it.



RetentionX calculates a performance score (0-100) for each product based on the following four metrics:

• Click-Through Rate
  Percentage of clicks on the product out of all collection views in the last 7 days. Performance is measured based on the click rate per position within the collection.
  
  
• Basket Rate
  Percentage of product views that resulted in a product being added to a basket in the last 30 days. Performance is measured against the basket rates of all products in the collection.

• Purchase Rate
  Percentage of purchases of all products added to baskets in the last 30 days. Performance is measured against the purchase rates of all products in the collection.
  
  
• Product LTV
  Average LTV up to 90 days of all customers who bought the product in their first order; calculated by Sum of Net Revenue - COGS.

Your products are automatically sorted based on their performance score.

Activating Auto-Sorting

By default, RetentionX does not automatically sort your collections. Auto-sorting remains off for all collections until you activate it. Once the learning phase ends, you will receive an email notification informing you that your collections are ready for auto-sorting.

Collections ready for auto-sorting are marked in grey, while activated collections are marked with a green dot. You can activate dynamic sorting in two ways:

1. From the Collection Overview
   
   
   
   
2. From the Collection Detail Page
   
   

Once auto-sorting is activated, RetentionX pushes the updated product positions to Shopify. If multiple products have the same assigned position (e.g. due to custom sorting rules), Shopify will randomly arrange them.

Auto-sorting updates occur daily. However, if needed, you can manually trigger an immediate sync. This action applies the latest sorting updates to all collections where auto-sorting is enabled.

The collection detail pages provide transparency by displaying product positions and recent movements:

What to Expect After Activating Auto-Sorting

As soon as you activate the auto-sorting for your collections, RetentionX continuously optimizes product positioning.

However, especially in the first ~2 weeks after activation, you may notice quite frequent product movements. If a product is performing better than expected in its current position, RetentionX may move it to a higher position to test its performance with increased visibility. For instance, a product initially in position #10 may be moved to #5. If the product underperforms in position #5, it may be reassigned to position #7.

Over time, these changes become less frequent as product rankings stabilize, though updates will continue to reflect new products and shifts in customer behavior.

You can monitor the performance of your collections before and after auto-sorting is turned on at a glance for all your collections...

... as well as for each of your collections individually.

Hovering over the widgets Views, Click-Through Rate, and Revenue per Mille gives you the option to directly expand the view to the development of this metric in the Collection Development report.

Deactivating Auto-Sorting

If you wish to disable auto-sorting for a collection, you can do so easily again from either:

1. The Collection Overview
   
   
   
   
2. The Collection Detail Page